


Dying wish(es): Upsurge

by ElnaK



Series: Books of Blood [5]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-09 07:17:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5530715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElnaK/pseuds/ElnaK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Bonnie fought with Klaus in Alaric's body (season 2, 2x19 if I'm right), Damon wonders about that strange feeling that took him by surprise when he went to get the not-so-dead Witchy back. Meanwhile, if Klaus went back to his own body, the consequences of the fight are heavier than predicted on Alaric...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RavensCAT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavensCAT/gifts).



> RavensCAT complained that Damon didn't get his goodbye kiss in my long-running fanfic, recently. This is what would have happened, though at another time of the story, if Ric had let the vampire have his way. So of course I couldn't let him have his goodbye kiss.

Damon made the golden liquid in his glass turn and whirl and swing.

When he had joined Stefan and Elena to take care of Bonnie, and not of Bonnie's corpse, as in “lifeless, dead body”, because the girl was very much alive, thank you very much, he had caught a glimpse of it.

Only a glimpse.

It had lasted only one second.

And then, it had been gone.

Damon would have hought he had had an hallucination, if the sight hadn't been so blood-freezing.

But it had lasted only for a short moment.

And then, it had been gone.

But he had seen it, of that he was certain, and the sight had taken a hold of his guts, and twisted, twisted so much it hurt. What he had seen had made him as if his body had suddenly frozen over, and someone was trying to break the ice of his skin with a pickaxe. What he had seen...

The vampire wasn't sure why it was like that, or when it had become so.

But it had happened, and there was no use denying it. The mere sight of it had made him feel as if his heart had fallen out of his chest and rolled on the floor, leaving bloodied tracks behind it. Even now, thinking back on it, Damon was under the impression that if he so much as turned his head and looked at the ground, evermind that he wasn't in the school anymore, nevermind that it hadn't really happened, if he so much as turned his head and looked at the floor, he would see his heart beating slowly on the carpet, pumping out drops of jammy blood with difficulty.

Of course, he knew there was not heart on his floor puking the last drops of a thickening blood.

But that was how he felt now, as he couldn't help but remember the sight, and the tightening of his chest as his eyes had met with the blue ones, back then, in the classroom that looked like a storm had stumped in.

The vampire really had no idea how that had happened. He had no idea when or where, either. But he knew that now, it couldn't stay the same as it had been. Maybe it had been so for weeks, for all he knew. Never before had he been so clueless about his feelings, but this time, there was no telling...

Damon squinted at his glass of bourbon, as if trying to make the golden swirls of alcohol show the scene once again.

Bonnie had had to make it look like she had died fighting off Klaus as he occupied Ric's body. At some point, Damon had seen the teacher's body break and bend and snap, and while he hadn't quite liked it, because let's be honest, he was slowly becoming friend with the hunter, it hadn't been anything more than that.

He hadn't liked it, and nothing more.

Now that the vampire thought back on it, maybe it had been because he had known all along this wasn't Alaric, though it was his body. Breaking and bending and Snaping wasn't something that happened to Alaric, but to Klaus. Who, by the way, seemed to care just enough for it to make him laugh. Psycho.

Sure, Ric's body was now broken and bent and snaped, but the teacher hadn't been here when that had happened. So it wasn't as if he had felt the pain when Bonnie had destroyed his hand, or dislocated his elbow.

Apparently the Original Bastard had had a wizard backing him up, because the history teacher's body had just gotten back into shape every time Bonnie had broken something with her magic.

This wasn't what was bothering Damon.

What bothered him was that Klaus-the-body-scrounger had left the classroom as soon as Witchy had collapsed, and yet, when Damon had gone back there to collect Bonnie, he had seen a figure with to bright blue eyes watching him from the corridor.

It had lasted only one instant, but it had happened.

Their eyes had met, and...

There had been that disturbing, destructive, distressing feeling.

As if the eyes, that should have been Alaric's yet weren't, as if these eyes had, with a single look, found Damon's heart within his body, and slashed all that kept it in place, making it fall and fall and fall in a bottomless pit, somewhere the vampire hadn't even known existed, and still didn't, as a matter of fact. He knew it was there, because his heart had to be somewhere, and it wasn't in his chest anymore, but he was still alive, so his heart wasn't just out there. He knew it had to exist, that place where his heart had fallen, but he didn't have the faintest idea where this place was.

It hadn't been Ric that he had seen in these eyes, and somehow, it hurt to know that.

This body was rightfully Ric's.

There should only be Ric in it.

Only Ric. No one else than Ric.

Ric only.

But there had been someone else, and Damon had seen it, he had seen the “Klaus”-mind under the “Alaric”-looks. And he had searched, almost desperately, during that instant their eye contact had lasted, he had searched for Ric, and he hadn't found him.

At last, the vampire had gotten Bonnie to her safe house where-no-vampire-is-allowed-sorry-even-if-I-hate-you-the-ancestors-decided-it. Then he had gone back to the school to take care of the mess, blood and otherwise-disturbing-pieces-of-evidence-that-something-unnatural-had-happened.

He had found much more blood than he had thought there would be, and not only in the classroom/battlefield. It seemed that Klaus had gotten his personal wizard to patch him up right after the battle, as in, get rid of the blood that had stayed in the body, since Witchy had judged it fitting not only to break the limbs, but the organs too. If Alaric was ever to get the control of his body back, Damon could only hope there would not be anything left of the fight, or that would hurt quite a lot.

The vampire moved a bit abruptly, and the golden alcohol in his glass almost jumped out of its container.

There it was again.

If Alaric ever got his body back again.

Damon had to admit, he'd be pretty pissed if the history teacher didn't go back to being the history teacher / vampire hunter / supernatural babysitter just after when he, Damon Salvatore the Great and Mighty, had discovered he had feelings for the said history teacher. Because if Alaric never went back to being Ric, then there was no hope that he would one day become Damon's personal history teacher / vampire hunter / supernatural babysitter.

He was a very possessive person, and even more so when he wasn't even given the possibility to be possessive. When someone told the older Salvatore “No, you won't have it / him / her / whatever”, the vampire had this disturbing habit of breaking the annoying someone's neck and take the thing / person / whatever anyway.

The thing was, if Alaric was no more, he couldn't take him anyway, and if the annoying someone was Klaus, good luck with getting rid of him as a vengeance.

For the first time since he had poured himself a glass of bourbon, Damon grunted.

Yes, grunted.

Fortunately, there was no one to witness his lack of style.

The vampire was about to fall back into moping, even if he would later on deny that any sort of moping / brooding / any-other-way-of-saying-he-was-about-to-cry had happened that day, when an offensive ringing gained his attention.

Once the offending cellphone was out of his pocket, Damon glared at it as if to make it melt.

Ric's number.

But Ric was unavailable, so this was most likely Klaus, in the mood to gloat over his so-called victory or something. And right now, the only thing Damon wanted to do about the Original certainly wasn't listening to his boasting. No, it was more like crucifying the bastard in the middle of nowhere, with earplugs and a mp3 playing endlessly some annoying song.

“Oh my word this tune is annoying...” or maybe “Amazing horse”.

Upside down, of course, head towards the ground, feet towards the sky. And maybe one of those boxes of powder that make you want to sneeze under the nose.

You know.

Damon gulped down his bourbon and picked up. Before Klaus got a chance to speack, he drawled an unpleasant greeting that he hoped would be enough to make the Original Bastard shut up.

“If this is to boast about how you laminated our super-powered witch, I'm hanging up.”

But what the vampire got for an answer made him speechless, and certainly made him forget everything about hanging up.

Alaric's voice, so far no surprise, after all, Klaus the Annoyance was body-scrounging the history teacher, Ric's voice chuckled lightly.

Damon blinked, twice.

Was Klaus the kind of villains who chuckled?

He didn't think so.

He could be wrong, but Klaus wasn't the kind of bad guy who chuckled, from what he had seen. The guy didn't even sneer. No, Klaus was more the kind of guy who simply laughed, and than told you of your impending doom cheerfully.

That was annoying, by the way, because this kind of villains was very difficult to make fun of.

But the man with Alaric's voice on the phone had chuckled, and lightly at that.

And, now that Damon thought about it, it had also sounded a bit... strained?

“ _Klaus is gone, Damon.”_

Which meant...

“You're back?”

“ _Seems like it.”_

There was a big CLANG! and Alaric asked what it had been. Damon could almost hear him furrow his eyebrows in wonder over the cellphone.

“Nothing, just me letting go of my glass, my glass colliding with the floor, and breaking because of the collision. Nothing to worry about. Where are you? No, wait, first, how are you?”

Ric was back in control, back in his body, and alive! Damon was feeling like the happy balloon itself with just this new. Well, he wasn't planning to let anyone know about it nor to start hovering in the blue sky, after all, he was Damon Salvatore the Bloddy Heartless, but he was certainly feeling the part. Even if he wasn't light enough to float in the sky, and it was way too late for said sky to be blue, or at least, light blue. Now, it was more night blue, or black, your choice.

But the happy ballon soon deflated.

“ _I'm behind in the street behind my building, actually.”_

He had answered the “where are you?” part...

But kept the “How are you?” part without answer.

Punctured, the happy balloon, and hissing as it shriveled through the air.

Damon's voice was a bit amiss when he asked again how Alaric was doing, and he was conscious of it, but unable to stop it.

This time, Ric answered, but before that, he kept silent long enough for the vampire to know with certainty there was something very, very wrong, and he was totally not going to like it.

“ _There's a reason Klaus let me go. I'm dying, Damon.”_

“What?! Don't move, stay right where you are, and don't you dare pass away while I'm on the way. I'm coming. We'll give you some of my super healing blood, you'll be back into shape in no time, you'll see.”

Alaric's voice cut the vampire's rushed talking.

“ _Damon.”_

But he simply ignored it. Panic was taking over, and Damon didn't even care that it did, because there were more important things to deal with for now.

Maybe it wasn't like him to fret. Then again, he hadn't been in love since Katherine, so one could say it wasn't like him either to fall for the local vampire hunter. No, not Liz, you dimwit; Ric, of course.

Damon's brain was starting to behave strangely, and somehow he was feeling as if he was going to burst out laughing and crying at the same time. Conflicting emotions were really bothersome feelings... No wonder he had tried to stay away from them for so long.

“Just stay here, don't move, I'm on my w...”

When Ric interrupted him this time, the vampire couldn't ignore it. The hunter's tone was sharp, his wording quick, and he clearly wouldn't have it if Damon tried to go on ranting instead of listening.

“ _Damon, I'm already dead. Bonnie broke my neck when she fought with Klaus, and the only reason I'm still talking to you is because the spell Klaus used to body-jump into me recquired his blood and mine to be in equal quantity in my veins.”_

The cellphone almost fell out of Damon's hand.

“You mean you're...”

“ _In transition, yes. I won't complete it, but I wanted to say goodbye, even if only to you.”_

Despite the situation, despite the fact that Ric was currently dying in an alley, Damon felt his heart leap in his chest. Why even if only to him? Why to him, and no one else?

Sure, he had quite a good idea as to the answer to that question. Alaric wasn't close to Stefan; Bonnie had killed him and he wouldn't want to make her feel guilty about it, typical Alaric-behavior; Elena and Jeremy would take it hard, after all that had happened, and they might even try to convince him to turn, a thing to which he would not agree; Jenna... Damon guessed that maybe Ric could more or less guess that Klaus had ruined everything for him, and moreover, she didn't know about vampires, so it wasn't a bright idea to get her and tell her he was already dead yet not already gone; Caroline and Tyler simply weren't on the list.

The teacher would have thought Damon was the only one who would let him go peacefully and not break down afterwards. And there was the fact he was his only friend in town, too.

“I'm on my way.”

And Damon hang up.

He was sorry, but unlike what Ric most certainly thought, he wasn't going to just live with the hunter's death. If it had still been about friendship, maybe he could have. But now, it wasn't mere friendship anymore.

Before leaving the boarding house, the vampire grabbed two flasks that looked exactly alike and were full. He opened the first one, inhaled a strong smell of alcohol, closed it, and did the same with the other flask.

Perfect.

The plan was in motion, just as it should be.

He only hoped he would get to Alaric before the hunter passed away from not completing the transition. It'd be a shame. Especially as Damon had a sneaking suspicion that even if a wounded man stumbled right before the transitioning Alaric Saltzman, the teacher would still have enough self-control to just walk away.

No, he had to play it more cunningly.

When Damon arrived in the alley, the first thing he saw was a vampire hunter pale like a ghost leaning against a wall. The man was already breathing heavily, and Damon wondered how much time exactly they had left. As far as he knew, the transition did not last the same amount of time for everyone, though it was never more than a few hours.

“Couldn't you have gone to die in a less visible place, like your loft just above our head?”

The history teacher still found the energy to snort at that.

Ric pointed to his chest, then to the building behind, his finger pointed somewhere towards an apartment in a vague motion.

“Klaus is gone of here, but he's not gone of there.”

Damon looked disbelievingly upwards.

“You've been thrown out of your own place.”

Alaric rolled his eyes dramatically.

“You'd think he'd have at least some decency to show a dying man.”

“Klaus? Decency? Would you care to say that again?”

The hunter grinned a painful wince, then gestured for his friend to sit beside him. Damon complied. Asking Ric to move somewhere else simply seemed not to be an option.

“Any dying wish, maybe?”

To the vampire's surprise, Alaric sniffed at that, and arched an eyebrow.

“Actually, yes. My nose is telling me you have bourbon in there.”

And he pointed at Damon's vest.

His friend grinned, and produced the two flasks from an inside pocket. Inwardly, he hoped he hadn't got it wrong, and handed the teacher one of the two flasks. One, and not the other.

“Busted. Yours.”

Alaric looked longingly at the flask before he opened it.

“To say that will be the last taste on my tongue, and I'm happy about it... I really became a drunkard, didn't I?”

“You deal with people who want to kill all of us, with monsters who want to kill you, and with people who are killed, all year long. You're entitled to have one or two flaws. And it's not as if you were a mean drunk. You're more like a sad drunk, you know.”

The hunter only took a large gulp before answering.

“You can speak. Drinking do no lasting damage to you.”

They hadn't looked at each other since Damon had sat down with him. They were only looking at the wall, really, at nothing, in fact, just gazing into nothingness.

They stayed like that for a while, maybe ten, fifteen minutes. They talked, and said nothing. There were discussions, and times of silence. Alaric almost finished his flask, while Damon didn't touch his. He didn't even open it. Time passed, and the hunter seemed to get weaker by the minute, when Damon finally asked.

The vampire's voice was soft, almost quiet, and maybe a bit sad.

Ric didn't miss it.

Only, he didn't know what to make of it.

“You're sure there is nothing I can say that would make you change your mind?”

Alaric turned to look at his vampire of a friend.

He still had no idea how he had gotten there, but somehow he had befriended a vampire. Furthermore, the one to whom his wife had asked to be turned. The one he had sworn, so long ago, that he would stake, if that was the last thing he ever did. And said vampire and he had become hunting buddies. Usually, vampires hunting buddies. Sometimes werewolves hunting buddies, too, but that didn't happen often.

Ric guessed he must have missed a turn somewhere, and instead of Revenge Land, he had ended up in Nonsense Land.

Hunting vampires with the very vampire that had made him become a hunter.

Nonsense Land, truly.

And now, Damon was asking him if he wouldn't consider becoming a vampire too.

Alaric was surprised to detect something that looked quite a lot like anxiousness behind the uncaring mask his friend was wearing. It wasn't much, just a flicker of the upper lip, a glint in the eye. It wasn't much, and he couldn't be sure what it was. But it sure looked like anxiousness.

And it looked as if the vampire cared more than he admitted, not only that he was going to die, but also that he would leave him alone.

The hunter wouldn't have been surprised by some sadness, after all, it wasn't easy to lose a friend. But he also knew that Damon was good at hiding his emotions. Not so good at dealing with them, but good at putting a mask on. He knew that his friend wouldn't be overjoyed with losing him, but that he would still accept his decision, and say goodbye.

Just that, goodbye.

But now...

If Alaric had had the energy to be baffled, he would certainly have been. But he was feeling a bit to tired to really react.

“Damon... I have nothing to live... unlive... well, you know... for. Sure, I'd like to be there for the kids, and to help protect everyone, and to live. But not so much that I would put up with being a vampire. I don't want to see everyone grow old and die. I don't want to stay the same as the world change. I don't even have someone to share the eternity with.”

As he finished talking, Alaric saw a glint come to life in Damon's eyes, like a distant fire, and for one second he wondered if he had done well to say that.

That glint, it almost seemed malicious.

Suddenly, the glint disappeared, and the vampire grinned. It was a smile the hunter knew too well, and it usually meant mischief. The thing, with Damon Salvatore, was that mischief was usually equivalent with someone's death.

If Ric hadn't already been dying, he would have backed away.

“You know what? There one more thing you'll taste before dying.”

Alaric squinted.

There was something very fishy about Damon's tone.

The vampire got up.

“I'm coming back right away.”

Before the hunter could ask what it was all about, Damon had disappeared. He came back only a moment later, gulping down what was left in his flask. Ric wondered if he had perhaps needed to get drunk before doing whatever he wanted to do, but the flask could hardly contain enough alcohol for that to happen.

Very, very fishy.

A strange smell reached the hunter's nose, something alluring, something very certainly good to drink, but it was faint, far away, and at the time Alaric didn't understand.

Damon crouched down next to Ric.

The vampire observed his friend for a moment, not speaking, not moving at all.

And all of a sudden, a wide-eyed Alaric found himself being kissed passionately.

It was hot, and alive, and as if the vampire was asking for more, much more, and to the hunter's surprise, he was responding with everything he had. His dying body had a sudden upsurge of energy. His back left the support of the wall behind him, his arms embraced Damon's back, his crotch was suspiciously hard and he actually thought he should be ashamed of it, before a new twist of the vampire's tongue made the thought disappear.

Finally Damon ended the kiss, and Ric noticed the strange taste in his mouth.

His eyes, that had closed themselves at some point, widened again.

“Oh no you didn't...!”

Damon evaded his glare, but opened his mouth, revealing the blood that had been in his flask and that he hadn't completely slallowed before kissing the hunter.

“Damon...”

But Alaric was stopped by the sudden pain in his jaw. A moan escaped him, and Damon looked back at the teacher. He seemed transfixed by what he saw, as his eyes fell on the news fangs in Ric's mouth.

Damon's hand cupped Alaric's jaw, and kissed him again, but slowly this time, softly.

The history teacher let him do so, and wasn't the one who broke the kiss this time either.

“See, it's not so bad. And you have someone to share eternity with, if you're willing to give me a chance.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alright. I hadn't planned to write what followed, but someone spoke of Ric's reaction... And there it is.  
> Apologies for the wait, even if you were not expecting it. I didn't write much this month.

Damon looked over his shoulder, searching for Alaric.

While they had been busy getting rid of Klaus --- and he couldn't say it had gone so well, really, he felt bad for Jenna, and even for Jules. Not for John, though. John was, or rather had been, an asshole --- anyway, while they had been dealing with the crazy Original Bastard, both Ric and himself had agreed not to talk, as in, at all, about what had happened.

It would have been too damn distracting.

The vampire finally spotted the hunter, sitting in the darkest part of the room, reading. Because strangely enough, now that he was a vampire too, and had a better sight than humans, the hunter was able to read with almost no light. And for the last two weeks, he had kept himself out of any light, despite having his own daylight ring, as if he was trying to get swallowed by the darkness.

The hunter looked up from his book, as if sensing the vampire's gaze on him.

“So?”

Alaric's voice sounded a bit dull, Damon noticed. But it had been this way for weeks, now, so he said nothing.

“Still not him. 'Should have expected it, the city is way too far away from the trail he's been leaving across the coast so far.”

The hunter grunted a noncommittal reply.

They had been on the roads since the beginning of the week, searching for Stefan, and this last conversation was a very good example of Ric's newfound lack of sociability.

Damon went to sit on one of the two beds, settling to watch Ric, as always.

He did that a lot, lately.

The newly turned vampire, that Damon couldn't help but still think of as a vampire hunter, only now, he was a “vampire” hunter in more than one way, the newly turned vampire was utterly ignoring his friend.

Former friend.

I-hate-you-just-enough-not-to-stake-you-at-the-first-opportunity friend.

Damn. This wasn't looking good for Damon. Not only had he lost a friend, but he had gotten on the vampire hunter's bad side. Again. As if once hadn't been enough. And now, the hunter was even deadlier than before, since, well... he was a vampire. As if the fact that Damon had foolishly fallen in love with his best friend and realized it while someone else had been hijacking the said best friend's body wasn't enough of a problem.

Because the vampire couldn't help but think he had foolishly fallen in love. Foolishly. Stupidly. Dumbly. Like everything he did, actually. He was a fool.

People didn't fall in love with Alaric Saltzman. They did sign up for a death warrant. Isobel had, and she had done buuuurn! not long ago, pile of ash in a cemetery. Jenna had, and Klaus had ripped her heart out of her chest for some ritual she had nothing to do with.

_Think positive, Damon. You're already dead. Maybe that counts for something, and the I-love-Ric-and-I-die curse won't fall upon you too._

_Sure, but Isobel and Jenna were both vampires, so already dead, when they died a second time._

_Damnit, I said “think positive”! You were already a vampire before falling in love with the serial lover. Just hope it will be enough of a difference._

_Serial lover?_

_Yeah, because he doesn't have to actually kill a vampire. He just have to wait around and make them fall in love with him. They'll die soon enough if they do._

_You're dumb._

_I'm you._

_I'm dumb._

_'Can't say otherwise._

_And your “serial lover” comment is only good to make me more worried for my future, since you said it yourself: I only have to wait, and I'll die. If you wanted to make me feel better, I don't know, you should have searched for another difference between me and Isobel or Jenna._

_...I can think of three differences._

_Well?_

_The chest, the dick, and the balls._

…

_What? It's true!_

_You're stupid._

_What can I say? I'm you. And you're getting horny, being in the same room as the guy you love._

_Please don't mention it. It was hard enough to ignore it when his towel slipped out of his hands after his morning shower yesterday. And there's the fact that Alaric is male. How could I even fall in love with a male? I mean, I've nothing against homosexuality, but I'm just not...I mean, I only ever loved girls._

_Wrong. You only ever loved Katherine, and Elena a bit too, because of their physical likeness, even if you grew to like her for herself after a time. That's not loving only females. And don't go and say that even without love, you've only ever fucked women. You were thinking of Katherine each and every single time. Of course you wouldn't have gone to fuck a man. Or get fucked by one, either._

_Alright, I had a Katherine-Pierce obsession! That doesn't mean I'm bisexual._

_'Doesn't mean you're not. And don't ignore my comment about being the one to get fucked. I know you were flinching at the thought. I know what you were thinking, when the towel fell down and you saw it. I know it because I'm you. I know every single thing you try to ignore. Don't ignore this one._

…

_You can't hide from your subconscious, Damon._

_Alright, alright!_

That was the moment Damon thought he'd better stop thinking altogether, even if he had no idea how to achieve that. It wasn't his fault, after all, that every time he closed his eyes, he'd see that naked and slightly wet body, and the muscles, and the...

STOP!

Stop thinking.

Stop. Thinking.

Just stare at Ric, instead. Right. Staring at Ric was very helpful. Even if it had the disadvantage of making the vampire's pants feel tight. Because when he stared at Ric, he didn't think of anything. Well, maybe he did, but he was so taken that he didn't register he was thinking.

Just as Damon stared, Alaric looked up from his book once again. It was as if he had felt someone was looking at him, and since the vampire was the only other person in the room... Creepy stare on.

Damon tried to contain the shiver that ran down his spine when Alaric's cold blue eyes fell onto his own, as if trying to make a hole through his skull at the same time.

However, he couldn't help the fact that he was a bit... disturbed by the stare. So he gulped, and tried to make it seem as if he was totally not disturbed.

It was time to talk about that, anyway.

“You'll have to choose whether you like me or hate me, eventually.”

There was a long silence, during which neither Alaric nor Damon looked away. They were there, looking each other in the eyes, in silence. They were there, looking, and that was all.

There was no deep meaning in their gazes, no hidden message, not even tension.

The hunter was looking at Damon, but his eyes were far from betraying his thoughts. Maybe he wasn't thinking. He was more looking in the direction of the vampire than at the vampire. In the direction of the vampire's eyes, granted, but still. It didn't feel like he was actually looking at Damon. It was one of those very disturbing stares, when you don't really know if the person is looking at you or if you just happen to be in their line of sight.

As for the vampire, he was looking at Alaric, but in a matter-of-fact way. It wasn't demanding, nor hopeful. He was definitely looking at the hunter, but his face was carefully blank.

It was true, after all.

Ric was obviously angry with him, but he hadn't gone away after his turning.

Yes, he had tried to end his life two or three times. Alright, seventeen times in ten days. But Damon had always been there, and stopped him before it was too late. And now, he had stopped trying. Sure, Damon wasn't one-hundred-percents sure the hunter wasn't waiting for him to think there was no danger and leave him alone. That's why he was still careful not to let the newly turned vampire alone for too long. You never knew, with that guy.

But besides the fact that Alaric had tried to stab himself twice, burn with the sun six times, rip out his own heart thrice, behead himself five times and even go under a train, the hunter hadn't disagreed to stay with Damon and help him find his wayward blood-addict of a brother.

Ric was angry with being a vampire, hence, angry with Damon, since he was the one responsible for his final turning. Though the vampire felt Klaus had to be blamed, too, or it wouldn't be fair. After all, without Klaus the Original Bastard, Alaric wouldn't have been possessed, and killed with vampire blood in his body, and so Damon wouldn't have had to, nor been able to, force feed him some blood.

See? It was all Bloody Klaus' fault.

The vampire wasn't going to point that out to Alaric, though. Not yet, at least. He didn't want to be stabbed / staked / you-know... Even if it it was with this very special sword that Ric kept between his legs, he might consid...

There was something wrong with him, if he couldn't help but think of that. It wasn't as if the hunter was willing to indulge his desire. And it wasn't as if they had just spent one week with each other only, taking only one room in motels every nights, and sharing a silent presence in the vampire's car as they moved from one spot to another, searching for Stefan. There was absolutely no reason why the lovestruck vampire would feel sexually insatisfied, none at all.

Anyway. The best way not to think about something is not to think about it, and that's all. Of course, trying not to think about something just doesn't work. The thing to do was to think of something else. Something that obsessed him just as much, if possible.

So, Alaric, but not Alaric's body.

_Get it carved in your thick skull, you love deprived good-for-nothing vampire. Not. His. Body._

As he had been thinking before getting sidetracked, despite the anger, Alaric was still there. With him. And him only. Granted, searching for Stefan as the kid was out there utterly unable to keep his fangs out of trouble. In a way, the hunter was doing this for the sake of the unsuspecting people, as he did before. The fact that Damon was here might count just as much as a coincidence. Or maybe an opportunity to murder the vampire if the hunter finally felt like it.

But still.

He'd have to thank his brother, once they'd have found him, and gotten him out of ripper-mode.

Ric was here, with him, and though he wasn't talking to him, he wasn't blaming him either. He wasn't acting pissed off, or hatefully, or violently. He just... stayed there.

With him.

He could have gone. He could have left, travelled half the country, and forgotten about Damon. He could have not returned when he had gone to buy the beers, and killed himself. Damon was keeping an eye on him, but he wasn't fooling himself, he knew he could do it only because Ric allowed him to. Hell, he could just have stayed back in Mystic Falls, with Caroline-the-super-control-freak to teach him how to rein in his new urges to tear at someone's throat.

There was no way that the hunter wasn't staying out of his free will.

Alaric was angry. Alaric was grudging. But Alaric didn't want to leave either.

So, maybe it was stupid, but Damon couldn't not hope. Maybe there was a bit more than friendship in there, in that cold gaze that revealed absolutely nothing, but that, at least, existed.

The hunter closed his book, and put it down on the nightstand. His eyes left the vampire for a long and agonizing minute, as he looked at the ceiling with no real purpose. Eventually, Damon heard him sigh.

Alaric's head went down again, and Ric's eyes found the vampire's again.

For the first time since they had left Mystic Falls, the hunter's face wasn't completely neutral.

The jaw wasn't trembling, the eyes weren't flickering, the mouth wasn't anything else than a thin line. Deliciously tempting thin line, by the way. Most of Ric's face was the same as before. Unmoving. Uncaring. Unconcerned.

But the hunter was frowning slightly.

Alaric stood up, slowly, carefully, and Damon couldn't say if he looked more like a predator coming to his prey trying not to be noticed, or like a man who sees a wounded predator and tries not to make jerky moves, just in case it would set it off. Before, Damon would have said it was the latter, as Ric had been human, and himself had been a jerk. Now... knowing the hunter, the vampire felt it was most likely the first explanation.

Did Alaric have any weapons on him right now? Maybe his question had been the straw that broke the camel. No, forget anything about imagining Ric as a camel. It certainly wasn't the time for this.

Damon froze when the hunter sat down on the bed, next to him. No weapon in sight for now.

“What are you talking about? I'm here, am I not?”

 


End file.
